If you’re willing to pay the price,
any of your circumstances will change.
If you want something badly enough,
you’re sure to get it.
The key to success is desire.

Obstacles don’t matter very much.
Pain, circumstances or other challenges can be there.
But if you want to do something bad enough,
you’ll find a way to get it done.

Your desire will in time externalize itself into concrete fact.
Your reality will form around your commitment to succeed.

You only have to love a thing greatly to get it.
Desire is the fire of life.

This really resonated with me this morning, as I am trying to work on a few things for my business. I’m not the best at goal-setting, but I normally have a pretty good idea of where I want to go in life. I definitely have the desire!

And yes, Mom, it’s from “The Guru”!!!

Filed under: Business
8 Comments

If you know me at all, you would have figured out that this post was coming, based on a post from a few weeks ago. Yes - my new Macbook Pro arrived today (one day early - thanks FedEx!)

I made the decision last week to officially make the switch and move completely to a Mac and abandon my old Dell running Windows. Now not only do I have a nice looking laptop, but since Macs now run OS X (a variant of UNIX), I can be one of those condescending computer users…

So, I have pretty much been working all day on the process of transferring everything over to the new notebook, installing programs, and basically just geeking out! (Laura, since I know you will be bored if I type much more about this, just scroll down and look at the pretty pictures!)

The notebook shipped on the 2nd and I was wondering why it was taking so long — until I realized that it was shipped from Shanghai! It was scheduled to arrive tomorrow, but the FedEx guy rang my doorball at 9am today! WOOHOO!

Ahh…. The very cool box of the Macbook Pro, sitting next to the display box - and yes, it really is HUGE! Oh yeah, picked up some Harman Kardon Soundsticks also - they sound sweet!

I’m always impressed with Apple’s packaging - very cool.

I setup the new speakers first so that I could jam out to some tunes (rap, of course!) while I set everything up… I booted up the laptop first and set everything up — after a few screens asking for my name, etc. it was ready to go - 10 minutes, max!

Now time for the screen!!!

No installs. No device drivers. Just plug it in and it works — awesome!

I decided that I didn’t need the laptop open as well - although it will work with both screens at the same time!

I had to check out a DVD on this screen. When I put a DVD in it brought up Front Row — an Apple program that allows you to use your notebook to play back DVDs, show photos, and play music and videos. Oh yeah, it comes with a remote.

LOST looked awesome on this screen!!

That’s all for now… Going to go grab a bite to eat with Carrie and then head back here to finish geeking out!

Filed under: Business, Personal
14 Comments

I think that I’ve finally started to get out from under the mountain of phone calls, emails, and requests from clients. The other night after playing poker with Brendan all night I woke up around noon and had zero voicemails - wow! The influx of emails has calmed down too - probably because basketball season is about to start, thus the majority of requests have been handled.

Carrie and I (and her friend Laura) are headed down to Cancun for a short getaway next week - just Thursday through Sunday. Thanks for my sister Natalie for hooking us up at the Omni! I’m looking forward to a few days away and am really going to try to ignore any emails for the couple of days that we are gone! Thankfully things always seem to slow down on Thursdays and Fridays. I’ve been reading a lot lately and have some new books to take along on the trip… One book I recently finished was “Honeymoon” by James Patterson - the was the first book of his that I’ve read. I knew he was popular, but didn’t realize that he is the author of “Kiss the Girls” and “Along Came a Spider” - both of which were made into movies. After reading Honeymoon I can see why. I picked up a copy of Grisham’s new book, “The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town” and just started it — it’s actually a non-fiction, his first I believe - pretty interesting.

On a geeky note, I am seriously considering making “The Switch” and picking up one of the just-updated Macbook Pros - they are sweet! I stopped by the Apple store in the mall yesterday to check out the notebooks and play around on the 30″ LCD displays - my old-school monitors may be a thing of the past! I’ve been checking out Mac software for the past couple of days and think that I could move over without too much trouble. Since OS X is based on UNIX there are some cool things that I could do from a development standpoint. Besides, the Macs are just cool - and I am so impressed with how easy it is to do things on them. When you go to install an application there is no long install process or rebooting - you just drag the app to the applications folder and that’s it - how it should be. I’m actually blogging this from the Mac mini that I have for web development testing - there are definitely some adjustments that I will have to make if I switch over, but everything seems to work fine so far.

Finally, it’s hard to believe, but Carrie and I are coming up on our six-month anniversary this Sunday! Wow - that flew by! So happy to be married to her - she is an amazing woman in every way and we really have a great friendship and relationship!

Filed under: Business, Personal
4 Comments

I did something Wednesday that I had never done before – fly to the west coast and back in one day!

Our meeting went well, but ended early – around 4:30pm. I pulled out my BlackBerry and looked up flights at Continental.com and saw that the last flight was at 6:20pm. After a quick call to Continental ensuring that there was a seat and, most importantly, that I could keep my upgrade  we were on that flight headed back to Houston.

Left Houston at 7:45am, meeting in L.A. at 2:00pm, back home by 1:00am – kinda crazy!

I don’t have a lot more details to share at this point, but this sounds like really great opportunity — we’ll find out more over the next couple of weeks!

Filed under: Business
3 Comments

I’m headed to L.A. tomorrow morning (7:45am flight – ouch!) for what I hope will be an awesome business meeting. It’s something that I think is going to be a pretty good opportunity for us! We’ll see what happens and I’ll keep everyone posted as soon as we know more.

Filed under: Business
3 Comments